Would you like to round up to £1? No I fucking wouldnt.

[DavAtTheCampaignForMoreBankHolidays]

I cant be the only one who is getting increasingly pissed off at being asked to donate 20p everytine I pay for something?

The recent one in a charity shop was being asked to round up to the nearest pound AND then being asked to donate 25p. In fact, it wasnt even asked, it was "shall I round it up?" and "press green to say yes".

I always end up feeling really tight but apart from the fact that it would cost a fortune if I gave a donation every time I was asked, I really resent that businesses get tax relief for this whilst also bragging that they donated £x to charity.

That's usually stuff that's not been selling well, and it's a last ditch attempt by the shop manager to try and get shot of it.

Then why not put it in a bargain bin right next to the till, with a huge luminous sign saying "Shampoo - just 20p a bottle!!!" ?

That'd shift it quickly, without having to keep hassling people who aren't interested.

Well, I don't know. I'm not the shop manager, am I?

It was a rhetorical 'why don't the managers do this?' - not expecting you personally to explain their choices!

We had something similar with oxfam (I'm going back a few years)
My father is sooooo hard to buy for and it's sods law that his birthday is days after christmas,so a bit of a double curse as he doesn't do 'stuff'
After years of getting york fruit sweets and peanuts (twice over) id happened to nip into oxfam and noticed a leaflet where you could buy something for people in a third world country
I raced back and told my family who agreed he'd love it
We bought him 2 goats,some tree,50 condoms and a few other random bits-came to about £500 between us
All good,he was happy that he didnt get endless bags of sweets or tat (that he didnt want in the first place)
Well,oxfam had him in their sights!
5/6 phone calls a day to nag him into donating £5/10 a month (ha!good luck with that,he hates parting with pennies,let alone notes) and he kept refusing and putting the phone down
They kept hounding him,he kept telling them to go away and this must be costing a fortune-how much where they spending on phone calls rather than what they where meant to be spending money on?
In among all this,he was getting endless letters,(at least two a day) all demanding money
My mother had to contact the ceo (twice) to get them to stop in the end,after they'd ignored his 'take my details off your systems now!im not consenting to this harassment!'
If they'd stayed in their lane and not hounded him,we would have bought loads every christmas (I admit that's not ideal but better than nothing at all)

Top it all off,within weeks there was that sex scandal with oxfam volunteers (or staff?I can't remember but it was huge in the news at the time)

I hate the 'can we round it up?'
It's almost every shop,which mounts up and the charities are not the ones id support

Good grief! I don't remember any mention of that when I was looking at Oxfam's "funusual" gifts. Maybe they should change their advertising?

Got a relative or colleague that you hate, but are obliged to buy for? Why not buy them a toilet in a developing country! They won't be able to moan about not receiving anything without looking petty, and you can have the added satisfaction of knowing that they will be regularly hassled by phone calls and letters asking them to donate money!

That is seriously off from Oxfam (although not surprising for them, I'd say). What a perfect way to kill the golden goose and spite themselves.

Aside from the volume of harassment to give, why would they target the 'recipient' and not the actual person who has supported/given to them for thr 'present'? Doesn't that go against data protection laws?

This certainly serves as a very stark warning not to give to them at all. Surely there must be far smaller, much less bloated and greedy charities, who just get on with the cause rather than making it all about them?

I can't remember their name, but that charity that acts as a go-between to enable people in wealthy countries to give micro-loans to (usually women) in poor countries, for them to start and run sustainable businesses sounds amazing.

Also, not the point at all, but I can't imagine 'giving' somebody a load of condoms as a 'present' for somebody else to benefit from!

"Happy birthday, Dad - I bought you a massive bumper pack of Johnnies!!" = awkward.

"No, no, they're not for you to use - they're for a stranger!!" = probably even more awkward.

I mean, I can certainly see why they're so greatly needed by people in developing countries; but could they not, say, just increase the cost of a goat by 10% and use the extra funds to discreetly throw in a batch of condoms as well - or even just classify them as 'personal healthcare supplies'?!

Haha
My brother bought the condoms
In some countries,some believe that if you are hiv+,having sex with a Virgin will cure you of the disease (that was the blurb in the leaflet anyway-I have no idea if that's true)
I'm guessing they also educated people on it all to stop this practice and helped stop the spread of the disease

If you met my father,you'd know he hates 'stuff'
He hates that we buy tat and pass it on while receiving tat,all in the spirit of 'but it's christmas/your birthday!'
Hence,we just bought him bags of peanuts/york fruit sweets,so this seemed like the perfect compromise-he got less peanuts and sweets (that he likes to eat as a few a year,not 10 bags in a week) his name on a donation and helped someone less fortunate than himself, he was happy,we where happy and a charity benefitted

Oxfam really shot themselves in both feet as this was over 25 years ago (dd is almost 29 now and she was a toddler then) and we would have spent about £500/600 a year on this stuff between us but they spent waaayyy more than that hounding him for more money and had to be forced to stop and not another penny spent by any of us

(I'm now nc with my whole family and still refuse to go into any of their shops on principle)

As an oxfam volunteer myself, we'd love to price like that, but Head office at the pricing policy and we're not allowed to, because allegedly anything ending in 99 will appear cheaper.
I think it's nonsense.
We have sales targets too. Utterly ridiculous.